Don't call me Siha
by Rinslet
Summary: Worry etched on his alien feature “Sih-” She cuts him off abruptly “Don’t” He stops, his breath stuck in his throat. “Don’t call me Siha. Not now, not anymore...” oneshot postgame


Haven't played the game yet, just checked a few vids… so there is probably lots of stuff that don't follow the plotline, sorry about that.

Story starts right at the end of ME2. So spoiler alert!  
Background: Destroyed the collector base, with a few teammate dead on the way.

For pen-gwyn, and all those who love Thane...

English is not my first or my second language, so forgive me if I make mistakes…

* * *

.

..

...

Her fingers lingered briefly on the smooth surface of the coffins, in a farewell gesture although she knew that it was unnecessary, because the bodies weren't _there_.

They were blasted, scattered away in thousand of pieces, billions of molecules into the dark space, in the roar of the explosion…

Grunt, engineered to be the perfect krogan soldier, yet whose brethren were hesitant to welcome

Tali, the exiled quarian who has no flotilla to return to

Jack, who blasted a crater from between the four walls that made up the only world she knew as a kid

Miranda, a runaway who was hellbent on keeping her life a secret from her twin

Jacob, whose home was wherever the very man who gave him birth was, but gave both up

Really, she had no idea about where these pods could possibly be shipped to. About who, in tears, would receive them…But nonetheless, the idea of sending them empty struck her as offensive, for they were more than walking hollow container with a Cerberus emblem printed on their surface. She even considered scrubbing the mark off, but put the idea aside to first go gather their things to lay them in those damn coffins.

Armed with purpose, she passed by the remnant of her crew, nodding her head to them, yet not quite meeting their eyes. Not _his_.

Joker approached and she accepted the datapad that he handed to her, nodding at him, before quickly making her way around the ship to gather the personal belongings of her dead comrades… or what was left of them in the Collectors' wake.

In her search amidst fallen debris, torn wires and overturned furnitures, she discovered small bits of things that she never bothered to learn from them. Stories that she never asked.

Tali and her fascination of omni-tools

Jacob and his magazines of cars, old models from Earth

Grunt and his secret pile of rocks from the world that he will never come back to affirm his krogan pride

Jack and her collection of leather collars

Miranda and her datapads that tells tear jerking romance stories

Shepard sighed and looked for something to put her findings into.

...

The task was tedious, and each move she made to reach an object was slow with respect and reverence.

As if she was digging through their bones to find a speck of the lives that she never knew

With the box filled, Shepard returned to her quarters, undertaking a full hour in cleaning and polishing whatever that she collected around the Normandy .

So intent in her work that she did not see or hear him enter, jumping lightly when he touched her shoulder.

"Thane"

He waited for her to settle down, before nodding his head at her, worry etched on his alien feature, but it didn't carry in his drell voice.

"Sih-"

She cut him off abruptly "Don't."

He stopped, breath stuck in his throat.

"Don't call me Siha. Not now, not anymore" she whispered through gritted teeth, and it is all that she can muster to hold back the culminating rage at her failure.

And he was quiet for a while, letting her turn back to her task, before he joined her, sitting cross-legged on the floor.

.

There's a space of 30.5cm between their shoulders.

Thane knows well about this distance.

He knows how to disable an armed enemy at this distance, make a plunging stab, deliver a punch that would knock the life out of his enemy… all in one breath. But in the next five, he can't even reach out to grab her hand, to offer comfort.

So he said the only thing that he could think of.

"I'm sorry."

She didn't pause in her work, didn't spare him a glance.

"Why are you apologizing..?"

"It… seems like the appropriate thing to say in such circumstances."

Silence. Pause. A sigh. A _clank_ as an object hit the floor rather forcefully.

"No… _**I **_am sorry, Thane."

_clank _

"For not being good enough"

_clank_

"For not living up to being the siha you thought I was"

_clank_

"Some damn protector I turned out to be."

_clank_

"Damnit. I though I was done with this. After…after Virmire, I thought the only life I would send to death was mine."

_cla-_

His hand was over hers, scaly and cold on her burning one.

"I understand your loss, Shepard. I _know_."

A gentle squeeze made her meet his gaze.

He _knows_.

Of course he does.

Her shoulders sagged, apologetic, tired.

"I'm sorry; I shouldn't have brought it up."

"There's no need to apologize."

"Does it get any better?"

"Yes."

"You should tell me how you do it."

"I could. But you already know, for it was you who revealed me to it."

She frowned, confused.

Slowly, he reached for her other hand and took his time to look intently at it, averting her gaze.

"I was awakened."

"You've said that before."

"Yes"

"Thane?"

"Siha"

She winced , as if the word wounded her physically, but let it slide for the moment "Talk to me."

He traced her forearms up to her shoulders and decided to rest his hands there, to still her attention on his next words. His mouth opened a few times, but no words were said for a while and Shepard can only imagine what he was thinking.

.

There is a hole in his heart in the shape of Irikah, and it has eaten away ten years of his life, leaving him to wander the galaxy, relentless, on the trails of her killers. The words that he had often told his wife have been lost in gunfire and smoke, become rusted, and now he was fumbling with some to make them sound _genuine_ to both their ears.

Several minutes passed in awkward silence before he finally relented.

"My eidetic memory keeps pulling me back to slumber, turmoil and whirlwind of emotions that I cannot do anything about. But I know that _you_ will wake me up. And in that, I know that you are Siha. You keep me _here_, Shepard, and not on the tracks of Irikah's killers who are long dead but still roaming about in my mind..." he closed his eyes for a moment, as if willing unpleasant images away.

"I hope to be able to do the same to you, though I don't think humans experience thoughts and regret the same way we do, but if there's anything that I can _do…_" his hands retreated from her, along with his voice.

"Well… know that I'm here. And where my body can't follow, my thoughts will reach you…"

A quiet whisper

A strong conviction

She knows that behind his words, behind rare smiles and subtle flirting, he was always thinking of his imminent death, and was doing all he can to spare her from spiraling down into grief when that day will come. Did she really seem so insecure and fragile right now, for him to come out and say these words?

'_You make me want to believe that I've lived all my life just to meet you, to dedicate the remainder of our time to make memories…'_

Shepard took a deep breath, taking in the moment before allowing a small smile to grace her lips "Heh… in that way, I wonder if you and I are _sodalis_"

He blinked "What is this 'sodalis' you speak of?"

Her smile widened, mysterious and teasing "I'll tell you about it someday."

…

She finished the cleaning and sorting, and with his help, they returned to the coffins to place the belongings in their respective places.

'_This is the best goodbye gift I can think of at the moment… And when I'll find a good place to bury you guys, I swear that you all will get a hell of a funeral… Even if I have to dig into the Council's pockets to get the funding._'

She stood upright and gave a final salute.

At her side, Thane's hands were joined for a prayer.

"They became space, Shepard"

She wasn't quite sure if she understood, but found herself entertaining the thought. Perhaps it was better to launch the pods out into space, rather than bury them in the soil of a random planet that holds no care for the fallen.

They turned to leave, and Shepard quietly confided in him "I wish I could forget all the atrocities that I saw on the Collector's base… forget everything… but doing so would betray _them_."

"It's alright for you to forget, Shepard, I'll remember for the both of us" he offered, but she shook her head.

"No... I will live with it and always remember. Hell, the people of the whole damn galaxy should know of the ones who died today to save their ungrateful ass, and never forget…" after a while, she added "But thank you."

Thane simply nodded, then gently led her back to her quarters before shutting the door behind them.

...

..

.

* * *

The choice for the dead characters were totally random, it's not that I disliked some of those characters or anything… I swear  
Dunno how the sequence goes and how the whole dead thing works… but for the sake of the story, let's say they all died in battle in the collector's base. I should get started on the game to get more infos...

_Sodalis_ : soulmate in latin…dunno if it's the genuine translation I'm using though…

Rinslet


End file.
